Marketing Genius Seth Godin’s has a lot in common with Social Work

Marketing genius Seth Godin’s take on the “Hierarchy Of Success” brings to mind Prochaska and DiClemente’s Transtheoretical Model of Change and makes great sense for social workers. Too often it seems we put the cart before the horse, and with the trend toward shorter and shorter treatment time lines we may not be as effective as possible if we fail to consider and engage our clients with Godin’s first two steps when forming treatment plans. His heirarchy is: 1. Attitude, 2. Approach, 3. Goals, 4. Strategy, 5. Tactics, 6. Execution.

He goes on to explain that we often work backwards and spend too much time on execution, but what good is execution without tactics? Tactics tell us what to execute, but strategy is what determines which tactics might work.

Our strategy should be driven by clear goals, but how are we looking at the situation? Does our approach correlate with our goals, or are we contradicting ourselves (or our clients)?

At the top of the hierarchy is attitude, and I agree that attitude is everything. As Seth say’s: If the top of the hierarchy is messed up, no amount of brilliant tactics or execution is going to help you at all. When our client’s have little forward motion, or perhaps even relapse, do we question their attitude, or our own? Do we reassess how to approach the situation, or do we simply reassess our goals as they are written on a treatment plan and measure which tactics were used and how they were executed based on outcome measures? Looking at the big picture is necessary for successful outcomes. Great advice, for career and for life.